Indiana University has eliminated 19 vehicles and reduced staff time needed to manage the motor pool by more than 50% as part of its fleet right-sizing initiative, according to a release from Agile Access Control. Agile is the creator of the FleetCommander fleet and motor pool software in use at the university.

Indiana’s fleet serves 2,700 active drivers and has 550 vehicles and equipment, including light-duty cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, buses, and equipment. Its motor pool consisted of 60 vehicles, which was reduced to 41.

“Managing our assets was extremely time consuming and difficult, especially the motor pool. We used to keep track of motor pool reservations in a giant book, where we would color in reservation days by hand. Reservations came in by phone, and we were penciling in reservations on a poster board,” said Amanda Wilson, manager of the Indiana University motor pool. “By automating these processes with FleetCommander, I would estimate we have cut back staff time by at least 50%.”

Despite cutting vehicles, Indiana’s fleet routinely receives positive customer service approval ratings of 90% or more via the FleetCommander customer satisfaction survey.

Wilson said the university at one point outsourced its motor pool needs to a car rental company; however that company was unable to keep up with the demand for its frequently changing vehicle types and usage requirements. Staff made a decision to return to operating an internal motor pool to meet those needs, Wilson said. By reducing the  motor pool fleet by 19 vehicles, the university saved between $3,000 - $5,000 per vehicle in maintenance, depreciation, insurance, and other costs annually, according to Agile estimates. Since right-sizing the motor pool, Wilson says that Indiana routinely surpasses its utilization goals.

Priror to implementing FleetCommander, Indiana did fleet reporting calculations manually. “With FleetCommander, we now have accurate, up-to-date fleet statistics and total visibility of our fleet. We didn’t have that before, the data is fantastic,” Wilson says. “We can make money-saving decisions backed up by hard data.”

Wilson said her goal is to create motor pools at the university’s regional campuses and manage them from the main campus fleet office.